EMMYS WATCH 2026 — DTF St. Louis: Scrutiny, Intimacy, and ‘Positive’ Masculinity
/‘Emmys Watch 2026’ showcases critical responses to the series nominated in the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards.
DTF St. Louis (2026)
The ending of DTF St Louis is awfully tragic, but also kind of funny. Throughout all seven episodes we are set up to suspect Clark (Jason Bateman) of the murder of his best friend, Floyd (David Harbour). All the pieces are there: Clark had an affair with Floyd’s wife, Carol (Linda Cardellini), and was revealed to be the mysterious “Tiger Tiger,” an anonymous online alias that had been messaging Floyd on the day of his death. In the end, however, Clark is innocent—as the series’ lengthy and complicated police investigation reveals, he had planned an elaborate scheme but with the sole goal of making Floyd feel better about himself; in this case by creating a situation where a stranger showed sexual interest in Floyd (getting a “chub” for him). Sadly, the scheme backfires and sets up a convoluted series of events that inadvertently leads to Floyd’s impulsive suicide. Indeed, DTF St. Louis’s big reveal is that Clark’s was motivated by an unconditional (albeit misguided) love, and not jealousy or revenge.
DTF St. Louis is full of red herrings; not so much in a ‘you thought it was the cook but it was actually the butler’ kind of way, but moreso in the sense that ‘you thought this was True Detective (2014) but you got something closer to My Dinner with Andre (1981)’. What was advertised as a typical prestige detective drama is far from it. It is a series that plays with genre conventions to unravel a moving exploration of male intimacy and emotional vulnerability. It is also a clever show that deserves all 13 of its Emmy nominations and, as we will discuss, presents an exploration of ‘positive’ masculinity that doesn’t shy away from complexity.
Perhaps in response to concerns about the online ‘mansophere,’ the concept of ‘positive’ or ‘soft’ masculinity has gained notoriety in recent years. It is a loosely defined idea that has contextually dependent meanings. Generally speaking though, attributes such kindness, emotional vulnerability, and empathy are all usually associated with ‘positive masculinity’—especially when they are subversively embodied by successful men in otherwise hypermasculine contexts. Television has played no small part in the discursive construction of ‘positive masculinity’ as it is often television characters, like Ted Lasso or Ron Swanson, that are held up as the ultimate exemplars of positive male role models. Indeed, it was just in 2023 that the cast of Ted Lasso were invited to visit the Biden White house to talk about men’s mental health (BBC 2023).
However, we (the authors) have always been cautious of narratives of positive masculinity and question how far they can go, as currently imagined, in dismantling heterosexist masculinity. Televisual narratives of positive masculinity are often quite simple and something that is catered to the mainstream. They are tied up with feel-good narratives of self-actualization, and individual success rather than institutional reckoning (Beare & Boucaut 2025). In this sense, ‘positive masculinity’ (as it is discursively understood) is, more often than not, a way for male characters to breakthrough the various harmful barriers put up by toxic masculinity to succeed on an individual level—either professionally or emotionally.
DTF St. Louis provides a multi-dimensional exploration of the types of traits associated with ‘positive masculinity’ and uses them to prompt meaningful introspection from its audience. Take for example, the emotional intimacy shared between Floyd and Clark. They have their own secret ways of communicating, share their sexual and emotional desires, and go to extreme levels to help each other. At times, this friendship is shown in the terms of self-improvement: Floyd learns to improve his physical fitness, and Clark finds a renewed sense of purpose. However, these traits are not shown to be wholly positive and, can be at times, associated with selfishness and immaturity. Carol is off-put by Floyd crying over Batman living in a comic book. She is upset at his lack of even attempting a job-interview. Floyd’s pursuit of his dream job ‘communicating’ (symbolically feminine) in ASL inadvertently causes the symbolic representation of his masculinity (his penis) being broken as a result. Rather than respond to this with anger however, Floyd is once again thoughtful and understanding—much to the confusion of the detectives. This presentation of masculinity pushes the detective genre, and the audiences expectations, as we wait for some kind of explosion of masculine rage. Chekov’s gun is meaningfully refused. There is nothing violent between the two central masculine figures—and the audience is left to reconcile this contradicting understanding of masculinity.
Indeed, DTF St. Louis regularly scrutinizes male intimacy through the lens of the detective drama. Due to the series’ non-chronological narrative, the audience is invited to cast their suspicions on Carol and/or Clark in the murder of Floyd. Taking on the role of the detective, we are presented with fragments of damning evidence—Floyd had found out about Carol and Clark’s affair, Clark was the mysterious ‘Tiger Tiger,’ Carol had a criminal history and also stood to benefit from a recently taken out life insurance plan. However, as the series evolves, and detectives Donoghue Homer (Richard Jenkins) and Jodie Plumb (Joy Sunday) conduct their investigation we find that these ‘clues’ are all unfortunate coincidences or misunderstandings. For example, Floyd had become a (kind of) participant in the affair and he also knew the truth about ‘Tiger Tiger.’ As audience members, we are invited to interrogate these characters, casting suspicion on their behaviors and motives. However, as Detective Plumb learns early on, what happened between Carol, Clark, and Floyd cannot be neatly understood in a typical detective narrative. Indeed, as all red herrings are explained reasonably, the only thing that the detectives (and by extension) the audience ‘solves’ is that there was no crime to begin with. As the series ends and we understand the full extent of Floyd, Carol, and Clark’s intensely private relationship, it feels as though we have intruded on the lives of these characters in a way that we had no right to. In using the conventions of the detective drama, DTF St. Louis forces us to question our understanding of masculinity and reckon with the fact that Floyd’s death cannot be explained through violence, aggression or jealousy, but rather through intimacy and care.
Ultimately, DTF St. Louis offers a truly subversive exploration of ‘positive’ masculinity through generic subversion used to cast the audience as inherently suspicious. With all the markers of a prestige detective/true crime genre the audience is set-up to expect a twist. You watch these two men attempting to hug until a half-erection forms and you need to connect this to murder, to deviance. There has to be something wrong with what we’re seeing. The viewer is therefore subjectively positioned as extremely suspicious of non-heteronormative masculinity (mirroring many real-world responses). Audiences start from the murder and work backwards in order to fit a narrative that the genre conventions imply is the only answer—why else would men be doing such intimate and vulnerable things on screen? When it is revealed however that Floyd was not murdered, the audience is left to reckon with their assumptions. The televisual markers of the genre constrain masculinity and we cannot make other conclusions. It is through a subversion then of the classic detective narrative that DTF St. Louis offers something truly transgressive. DTF St. Louis therefore does not just explore different presentations of masculinity (as many argue figures like Ted Lasso and similar do) but also confronts its audience with how challenging these presentations are to society—a reckoning that few other shows attempt. The audience was looking for ‘normal’ masculinity ‘from across the street’ and DTF St. Louis reveals the absurdity of believing this ever existed.
References
Beare, A. H., & Boucaut, R. (2025). Positive masculinity or toxic positivity? Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso as a capitalist utopia. Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies, 20(2), 169-184. https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020241228162
Biographies
Dr Alex Beare is a Lecturer in Communication at the University of Queensland. His research specializee in subscription video-on-demand, audience cultures, and media representations of masculinity.
Dr Amy Brierley-Beare is a Lecturer in Film & Media at York St John University, UK. Her research specializes in digital game studies, feminine play, emergent narrative, audience studies, and interactive feminism.